


Its Own Peculiar Wilderness

by beepalais



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Domestic, Getting Together, Injury Recovery, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-26
Updated: 2015-11-26
Packaged: 2018-05-03 10:47:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5287769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beepalais/pseuds/beepalais
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Bucky went to the corner store to buy an orange, lingering over the magazines until the clerk started giving him the stink eye. He was stalling for time, wanting to skip past Steve being miserable and sore and shoving him away every time Bucky tried to even move. He wanted to be past this, onto when Steve’s pride would heal and his thorniness would recede, so Bucky could finally get a hand on him again without the pretense of tending his wounds.   </i>
</p><p>Bucky knows what they say about third times.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Its Own Peculiar Wilderness

**Author's Note:**

> This Thanksgiving, I'm thankful for my family and the Bucky/Steve shoulder touch in the CA:CW trailer. 
> 
> Domestic fluff, just because.

In the spirit of a typical Saturday, Steve tried to pick a fight with the wrong group of thugs and ended up wheezing and broken in the alley next door. 

Bucky found him leaning against a dumpster, his eyes swollen and blood crusting over his cheeks and chin. He was conscious, at least, his eyes rolling wildly in his head before they settled on Bucky at the mouth of the alley, running towards him. 

“Aw, Buck,” Steve sighed in a put--upon way as Bucky sunk to his knees next to him, his hands floating familiar towards his face and neck. He gave a wobbly smile, blood seeping out between his teeth and Bucky’s stomach turned. His face must’ve shown it, because Steve closed his mouth right away. “You should’ve seen me,” he slurred. “I had them on the ropes.” 

Bucky fisted a hand in Steve’s shirt collar and put the other on his back, hauling him upright. “Steve, do us both a favor and keep your mouth closed.” He tried to get Steve’s arm around his shoulders to walk him back to the apartment but Steve fussed and pushed him away. 

“My fingers are broken, Buck, not my legs.” he scowled. Bucky’s eyes went wide and he reached for Steve’s hands--’What’dya _mean_ , your fingers are broken?”--but Steve held them close to his chest, limping out of the alley and around the corner. He was too quiet on the walk home, even as Bucky let him stay two steps ahead, walking behind him at a snail's’ pace to accommodate for his limp. 

He might’ve sprained an ankle, Bucky thought, and added it to the ever-multiplying list of things to check once they got back. But the three major concerns--could he walk, could he talk, could he focus his eyes--were taken care of, so Bucky allowed him his pride. The city was dark, the streetlights illuminating the way and Steve stepped in and out of their circles of light as he walked unevenly, the murky yellow tinge falling across his bruised face, its dark shadows of blood. 

They made it to the apartment after five long blocks and Bucky put a hand on Steve’s back to help him up the steps but Steve shrugged him off again, frustration already pricking under his skin.

“Don’t.” he snapped.

Bucky removed his hand with an exaggerated slowness and at least waited until Steve’s back was to him before he rolled his eyes. As Steve struggled up the stairs, Bucky kept a hand at the ready, hovering a few inches above his shoulder blades, just in case. If Steve noticed, he said nothing, shouldering into the apartment with a huff. Steve was always irritable and uncooperative when he was embarrassed and in pain, preemptively moving to knock Bucky’s hand away when Bucky was just reaching to hang his own coat.

“Hey.” Bucky warned, resisting the urge to grab Steve’s shoulder. “Knock it off.” 

Steve only scowled, moving to take off his own jacket with painful slowness. Bucky saw the unnatural slant of his middle and pointer finger, not extreme enough to turn his stomach but definitely broken and in need of a splint, which Steve was bound to be a prideful brat about the whole way through. He watched Steve’s clumsy fingers unlacing his boots, the bloody grimace of his mouth, but he didn’t get mad because it never did any good, getting mad at Steve. 

Bucky wet a rag and moved into the backroom, patting the bed they keep back there. “Come sit down.” he called to Steve in the kitchen. “Those fingers are gonna need a splint.” 

“They’re fine.” Steve responded, his voice almost at a whine. It killed Bucky to know that he put on that voice not because he wanted to be babied but because he was genuinely in pain and trying to hide it. 

“Sit on the bed.” he repeated, pulling open the top drawer of the secondhand cabinet in the corner. Their medical kit sat on top of everything else, a battered metal box that Bucky’s dad carried home from the trenches. 

Steve slouched to the bed and sat. He rubbed at his chin, dried blood flaking off his face onto the bedding and his trousers. 

“Knock it off.” Bucky told him from the corner, where he was tearing an old shirt into thin strips. “You can wash off when I’m done. I don’t want your fingers to set.”

“Fingers don’t set that quickly.”

“Oh, like you would know?”

“Oh, like _you_ would know?”

Bucky snorted and came to the bed, nudging Steve aside with his foot so he could sit. He put the kit behind him and took Steve’s fingers, examining them closely. They were starting to purple and swell, grimed with dirt and gravel. Bucky could make out the impression of a bootprint spread across them, and he had a sharp flash of blind rage for whoever it was that did this to him. He wiped the fingers clean with the wet rag, blocking out the hiss Steve made as Bucky passed over his mottled knuckles. He handled Steve’s fingers with a carefulness he reserved only for this, these brief touches. 

“It’s not even that big a deal.” Steve muttered and Bucky nodded absently, reaching for the split stick and fabric strips. He came closer so that their knees touched and Steve’s hand laid in his lap. “I know, Stevie. Just let me take care of it.” 

He wrapped each of the fingers separately with the fabric and then bound them together atop the splint. Steve was rigid as a board beside him, holding in all his winces and groans. His brave boy, Bucky thought. Stronger than anyone else he knew. 

He bound the fabric tight enough to stay and secured the end with a little metal clasp from the kit. “There,” he said, and shifted away so their knees no longer touched. “All done. It’ll be rough doing your twice daily rub-off for a while but you did this to yourself.”

Steve hit Bucky’s shoulder with his good hand. “Jerk,” he said. “It wasn’t my fault, they ganged up.”

Bucky stood and stretched, laughing. “Rogers,” he said, “Never in my whole life would I believe that you got into a fight you didn’t start yourself.” He took the precious bottle of aspirin out of the med kit, shaking it in Steve’s direction. “Does it hurt real bad? We’ve got enough.”

“No, I--” Steve stared at the bottle, jaw set. “It’s fine.”

Oh, for God’s sake. Bucky popped the cap and shook out a pill, offering it out to Steve. When he didn’t reach for it, Bucky pressed the capsule against his bloody lips until they parted, Steve’s tongue darting out to take the pill in, dry swallowing with some difficulty. Bucky’s stomach did a somersault. “You let me know if you need another one, and I mean it.” 

“Bucky, I told you, it’s not as bad as it looks.”

“Yeah, well, I’ll tell you what, it looked pretty damn bad from where I was standing.” 

And hadn’t that been a fresh new meaning of the word terror, coming to the bar where they were supposed to meet only to find it empty save the bartender, who was kind enough to explain to Bucky about Steve and his new friends. Four or five of them, he said, and all gruff dockboys. Bucky had raced out, fully intent on scouring the harbor front to back, but had enough sense to check the alley first. It was a habit you formed over time, being Steve Rogers’ friend. It was a bit fucked, Bucky thought, the feeling of relief that swelled through him like a wave when he found Steve only beaten to half to hell, but alive.

Steve bowed his head, picking at the blood on his face and finally looking sorry so Bucky relented. “Did they take your money?”

“Didn’t have any on me.” 

“See, small miracles.” 

Steve gave a humorless, snuffly laugh and sat into the bed to look out the window. With all the bluster out of him, he just looked small again, and in pain. 

“Steve.” Bucky said, leaning against the doorway from the kitchen to the backroom. Steve didn’t look at him. “Stevie. C’mon. You win some and you lose some, right? I bet you showed those creeps what’s-what before they split.” He saw Steve roll his eyes, but he settled, color coming into his face. 

Steve’s fingers were too messed up to work the radio dial, so Bucky stood by the set and turned the knob until they found a program to listen to. Steve called stop on Abbott and Costello, a reliving change of mood. 

“Y’gonna be alright if I step out?” Bucky asked and Steve nodded, pulling his knees up and a pillow into his lap. “Are you sure? You need another aspirin?”

“I’m not a goddamn invalid, Buck.” Steve sighed. “I’m perfectly capable of getting another aspirin if I need one.”

Bucky nipped down to the corner store to buy an orange, lingering over the magazines until the clerk started giving him the stink eye. He was stalling for time, wanting to skip past Steve being miserable and sore and shoving him away every time Bucky tried to even move. He wanted to be past this, onto when Steve’s pride would heal, as it always did after every defeat, and his thorniness would recede, so Bucky could finally get a hand on him again without the pretense of tending his wounds. 

By the time he got back to the apartment, Steve had washed his face and arms, the dirt and gravel no longer embedded in his forehead and his elbows. His bruises looked worse than when Bucky had left, his black eye hovering on his face like a dark moon. His scowl had seemed to come off with the filth, however, and his face was clean and pink. He even smiled at Bucky as he entered, tossing the orange up and down in one hand. 

“Is that for me?” Steve asked, only half kidding. 

Bucky snorted. “You wish.” But after he got his jacket and boots off he set about peeling it and splitting the sections perfectly in half. “Go long.” he teased, miming a football throw. Steve came to the edge of the bed and held out his cupped hands, wiggling the fingers that were capable of it. 

“Toss it here.”

But instead Bucky walked to the bed, pulling a section of his own half off. He got right in front of Steve, in between his parted knees, with the pant legs dark with dirt. Those would have to be washed, Bucky thought in some far off, hazy area of his brain. He’d have to scrub those stains out with lye soap and a bristle brush. “Open up.” he muttered, nudging Steve’s knees with his own. Steve laughed, staring up at him, not getting it, or so Bucky thought. 

“I can feed myself, Buck.” He said, just as Bucky pressed the tip of the orange section to his lower lip. He didn’t know why he was doing it. He didn’t really care. Steve took it into his mouth the same way he took the aspirin pill, his tongue just barely touching Bucky’s fingers, and he chewed thoughtfully before swallowing. When he looked back up at Bucky, there was threads of orange guts in his teeth. 

“Atta boy.” Bucky said, tossing the rest of the orange half in Steve’s lap and moving to ruffle his hair. Steve ducked out of reach, moving to sit further up the bed gingerly with his back stiff. Bucky studied him carefully out of the corner of his eye, trying to figure out if Steve was hiding a cracked rib. 

Bucky reached for the medkit on the bed, tidying it up and putting it back in the cabinet. “So did they get you in the sides, or anywhere else?” he asked.

“It was just my stomach and my hands, Buck. They didn’t break any ribs.”

Of course Steve knew exactly what Bucky was thinking, because Steve had an awareness of him that bordered on irritating, a constant pinpoint of thought that tracked Bucky everywhere. 

“Ok, then. How’re you feeling?” 

Steve popped the last of the orange into his mouth and gave a real smile, back in something like a good mood, as much as Steve Rogers could ever be in. There was a shimmer of orange juice caught underneath his lip, threatening to spill down his chin. He wiped it away with an absent thumb before Bucky could do it for him. “I feel like a million bucks.” he reported.

Bucky snorted hard out his nose, grinning despite himself. “Yeah, well, you look about two cents.” He found himself staring at the bruises on Steve’s face, the angry red scrape along his sharp jawline. That blind rage flared up again, ugly, obscene, and he had to blink and swallow to clear it out. “You need another aspirin?”

Steve shook his head. “I had another while you were out.” he lied.

“How bad does it hurt?” 

Steve reached to turn the volume up on the radio and then laid on his side, striving for casual but Bucky saw him wincing as he shifted into a comfortable position. “It doesn’t hurt. I’m alright.” he said. Bucky thought of Steve’s fingers, that shining black eye, the way his lip was split deep and perfectly down the center. He stood in the corner for a long time, thinking about how this would go. 

No point in dallying about it, he decided. Steve was already wobbling on the edge of a bad mood and would be for the next day or so. Best to do it when he would snap at Bucky right off, instead of politely shirking back and making excuses not to be around him for weeks on end after. On the radio, Costello was just hitting a good punchline, but Bucky only vaguely heard the laughter as he came over to the bed, sliding onto his knees next to Steve.

Steve looked down at him, kneeing him gently in his side. “What’s up?” 

Bucky’s head was fuzzy and the rapid darkening of the room wasn’t helping. He shrugged and leaned forward, bracing himself on the bed with one hand and placing the other on Steve’s side, sliding up his shirt. Steve gasped and wriggled at the cold touch. 

“Bucky, what’re you--”

“I don’t believe you,” Bucky explained, but his voice was hoarse and faint. “About your ribs.”

“Oh.” That was all Steve said. “Oh.”

This wasn’t the first time, or even the second. The first time had been months ago, right after they had moved in together. It had been building up to that for months before, maybe even years, but the close quarters had Bucky dizzy with it, aching and strung. They had been drunk in celebration of this new life--the apartment, their jobs, and freedom--and stumbled into the apartment clutching each other haphazardly, stumbling into the wall. Steve’s hand had gone from Bucky’s arm to his shoulder to his neck, fingertips brushing underneath his jaw and Steve’s face right there, floating in Bucky’s line of sight like they were underwater. 

Bucky doesn’t remember who moved first but he remembers the jab of the doorknob in the small of his back as Steve pressed into him, and Steve’s soft cry as he tripped over a pair of Bucky’s work boots on the way to the bed. Steve’s crooked spine moving underneath Bucky’s hands. The small ring of bite marks at the juncture of Bucky’s neck that stayed for days after, the only sign that it had all been real. 

Afterwards, they had ignored it, a week of crushing, uncomfortable silences at the dinner table and tense laughs that trailed off into nothing. But time continued and Steve got sick again and that, of course, meant more than these silly things, these slip ups in the everyday fabric of their lives. Bucky had moved on, said he wouldn’t be like that again. 

But he was like that again, not just then but all the time now, and in a way it only got worse. It happened again a month ago, and only Bucky was drunk that time, but not even by much. He had come home after a date, playing up how sauced he was for--for what, he didn’t quite know. To avoid questioning, to make Steve baby him, he had no idea. 

He tried to touch Steve but Steve made him put his hands behind his back as Steve went between his legs, all wet mouth and thin fingers. Bucky remembered feeling something swelling in his chest, like he was going to break open with it. He remembered Steve’s pale hair against the skin of his thighs, his hands curling up around Bucky’s hips, holding him down. 

Bucky had stayed with his ma for a few days after that. Something about her needing help with the twins. When he had left, Steve was at his drafting table with his back to the door, hunched and unyielding. Bucky said goodbye twice but he couldn’t reach him. Maybe wouldn’t reach him ever again. The idea had filled him with cold, solid terror, and he barely slept.

When he returned two days later, Steve was in the same spot he had left him in, though Bucky knew better than to think time had stood still when he walked out the door. When Bucky came into the kitchen, Steve did turn to him, smiling faintly and calling his name. They had come back to each other then, in different ways. Bucky didn’t think so much then about changing, about not being like that anymore. 

And now the third time, and Bucky knew what they said about those. It was going to happen. It had to. He could feel Steve’s heart beating under his thin ribs and the weight of Steve’s gaze from his good eye, unwavering. 

“I just gotta make sure you’re okay.” Bucky said, trying to keep the pleading note out of his voice, but his head and body still tilted in towards Steve, like magnets. Steve twitched under his hand, his belly rising with deep breaths. 

“‘M fine, Buck.” he said. “I’d tell you if anything was wrong.”

“No, you wouldn’t.” Bucky’s voice was very soft, his arm starting to tremble with the effort of holding himself up without putting any weight on Steve. He leaned in as close as he dared, lowering himself onto his elbow. The hand under Steve’s shirt shifted upwards and Steve exhaled hard, the tang of citrus on his breath getting Bucky hard, which didn’t even make sense. 

“Steve,” Bucky said. He wanted to bring himself closer, rest his forehead against Steve’s temple but he didn’t know what he was allowed. “I wanna--can I--”

Under Bucky’s hand, not one of Steve’s muscles moved. He was staring somewhere in the area of Bucky’s collarbone, his breath catching and stalling. “You wanna what?” 

Bucky didn’t have enough breath to answer. He moved his hand down Steve’s side, mindful of the ugly purple bruises taking root there. Then Steve’s hip was in his hand, curving against his palm. He waited. Watched Steve’s face for any sign that he wanted to pull away, or stop. Steve met his stare, his eyes dark and searching. 

He didn’t pull away, not even when Bucky put a hand between his legs, feeling blindly in the dark. He didn’t say anything at all, just closed his eyes and turned his head, his forehead resting against Bucky’s bicep. Bucky unbuttoned his trousers with shaking fingers and pushed a hand into his underwear. They were close enough to touch however they wanted but they didn’t, just breathed each other’s air as Bucky stroked him off, pausing quickly to lick his palm and continue. 

“Are you okay?” Bucky asked but Steve only whimpered behind pursed lips, tossing his head. Bucky stalled his hand, still wrapped around Steve but just barely. Steve’s mouth curled and he made another noise, indecipherable. “Steve, c’mon. Do you like this?”

Steve wrapped a hand around Bucky’s shoulder, pushing his face into Bucky’s chest. He could feel the wet of Steve’s mouth on his shirt, his breath moistening the fabric. Bucky was so hard he thought he might pass out, his hands shaking. He took his hand off Steve’s cock and tugged at the shorts hairs of his nape, guiding Steve’s head away from his chest. 

“You gotta be straight with me,” he said once they were eye to eye. It was only the third time, Bucky thought dizzily. The charm. “Tell me.”

Steve was moving against him, grinding himself into Bucky’s hip but it wasn’t enough. Bucky needed to know. “Yeah, Buck.”

“Yeah what?”

“Oh for God’s sake,” Steve hissed. His hands came up from his sides to cup Bucky’s neck, his blunt little fingernails biting into the skin, little pinpricks of pain that made Bucky’s knees go weak. “Yes, Bucky. I like this, I love it, I--I--you. Just you.” It didn’t make sense, not completely, but Bucky had to hold back the stupid, giddy laugh bubbling up from his chest. He pulled Steve in, both arms wrapped around him tight as he dared and kissed him. When he closed his eyes, he saw two spots burning bright against his lids, headlights in the dark. 

He got a hand between them again, into Steve’s pants to grasp his cock, working it over while Steve wriggled out of his trousers and underwear. Bucky didn’t think much to take off his own clothes; that seemed insignificant and beside the point. He moved to get between Steve’s legs and suck him off, but Steve kept a firm grip on his shoulder. 

“Stay here.” he said, his voice raspy. “I want to see you.” And damned if Bucky didn’t almost shoot off right then. 

He wrapped his hand around Steve’s cock,stroking slow. “You’re gonna kill me one day, Rogers.” 

“I’m counting on it, actually.” Steve said, his voice tight and happy. Bucky twisted his hand and squeezed, watching as Steve’s eyes fluttered up to the whites. “Hmph.” Steve sighed in the back of his throat, his hand moving from Bucky’s shoulder to his arm, gripping tight. 

Bucky crowded him in, getting a hand on the back of his neck again. They were so close that they couldn’t quite look each other in the eye anymore, but it didn’t matter. Steve’s hips were stuttering with increasing rhythm, and Bucky only moved away to lick his hand again, pushing his own fingers as far into his mouth as they would go. Beside him, Steve snuffed impatiently.

“No need to be a show off.” he grimaced, latching back onto Bucky as he rolled onto his side again. He shut right up when Bucky’s hand returned between his legs, though, his head lolling against the pillows.

Bucky was drunk off this, off Steve. Despite his cock hanging heavy between his legs, he felt like he had already finished, and just wanted to see that satisfaction all over Steve’s face too. “Y’ready?” he asked, embarrassed at how his voice slurred. 

Steve’s face was sweaty and hot, red blooming in his cheeks underneath the bruises. “Almost.” he said, practically a whisper. 

“Alright then.” Bucky kissed his shoulder, still covered by his shirt. “Take your time.”

All Steve could muster was a weak “Uh-huh” and then his other hand came to Bucky’s shoulder, holding less tight due to the splinted fingers. His leg shifted in between Bucky’s, and Bucky ground against it. The angle wasn’t enough to finish him off but it sent thick ropes of feeling down his thighs, making his toes curl. 

Steve’s breath in his ear started catching quicker, his hips jerking as he pushed himself up into Bucky’s slick hand. ‘Ah, Bucky, I--” He started, but he didn’t finished, instead shot off over Bucky’s hand with a stuttering moan, shivering with his face buried in Bucky’s collarbone. He stayed tense for a few seconds longer and then slumped against him, panting faintly. His slick dripped down Bucky’s knuckles and the back of his hand. 

He let a minute pass before he disentangled himself to wipe his hand off on Steve’s discarded trousers. “Hey…” Steve protested weakly.

“Oh stop, they’re dirty anyways.” Bucky placated, settling back into the heat of Steve’s body, pushing his clean hand through Steve’s sticky hair. He felt triumphant and relieved and weak at the knees, still, after all this time. He wanted to do something stupid and petty, to run outside and do a cartwheel on the street. When Steve shifted away, Bucky went still, watching him from under his lashes to see if Steve would turn on him again, put his back and silence between them. 

But Steve only tilted his head up to kiss him, sighing prettily as they both leaned into it. Amidst it, his lip split again, blood spilling between their mouths, and Bucky tasted it with a smile. Didn’t matter in the end, he figured. It was all the same blood anyways.

**Author's Note:**

> [@tumblr](http://www.deadmoneys.tumblr.com)


End file.
